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<div class="refentry">
<a name="gtk-running"></a><div class="titlepage"></div>
<div class="refnamediv"><table width="100%"><tr>
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<h2><span class="refentrytitle">Running GTK+ Applications</span></h2>
<p>Running GTK+ Applications — 
How to run and debug your GTK+ application
</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" align="right"></td>
</tr></table></div>
<div class="refsect1">
<a name="id462707"></a><h2>Running and debugging GTK+ Applications</h2>
<div class="refsect2">
<a name="id469472"></a><h3>Common commandline options</h3>
<p>
All GTK+ applications support a number of standard commandline
options. These are removed from <code class="literal">argv</code> by gtk_init(). 
Modules may parse and remove further options. The 
<a class="link" href="gtk-x11.html#x11-cmdline" title="X11-specific commandline options">X11</a> and
<a class="link" href="gtk-windows.html#win32-cmdline" title="Windows-specific commandline options">Windows</a> GDK backends parse
some additional commandline options.
</p>
<p><b><code class="systemitem">--gtk-module <em class="replaceable"><code>module</code></em></code>. </b>
A list of modules to load in addition to those specified in the 
<code class="envar">GTK_MODULES</code> environment variable and the 
<code class="literal">gtk-modules</code> setting.
</p>
<p><b><code class="systemitem">--g-fatal-warnings</code>. </b>
Make GTK+ abort on all warnings. This is useful to stop on the first
warning in a debugger, if your application is printing multiple
warnings.  It's almost always best to start debugging with the first
warning that occurs.
</p>
<p><b><code class="systemitem">--gtk-debug <em class="replaceable"><code>options</code></em></code>. </b>
A list of <a class="link" href="gtk-running.html#GTK-Debug-Options" title="GTK_DEBUG">debug options</a> 
to turn on in addition to those specified in the <code class="envar">GTK_DEBUG</code> 
environment variable. 
This option is only available if GTK+ has been configured with
<code class="option">--enable-debug=yes</code>.
</p>
<p><b><code class="systemitem">--gtk-no-debug <em class="replaceable"><code>options</code></em></code>. </b>
A list of <a class="link" href="gtk-running.html#GTK-Debug-Options" title="GTK_DEBUG">debug options</a> 
to turn off.
This option is only available if GTK+ has been configured with
<code class="option">--enable-debug=yes</code>.
</p>
<p>
The following options are really used by GDK, not by GTK+, but we
list them here for completeness nevertheless.
</p>
<p><b><code class="systemitem">--class <em class="replaceable"><code>class</code></em></code>. </b>
Sets the program class; see gdk_set_program_class(). 
</p>
<p><b><code class="systemitem">--name <em class="replaceable"><code>name</code></em></code>. </b>
Sets the program name.
</p>
<p><b><code class="systemitem">--gdk-debug <em class="replaceable"><code>options</code></em></code>. </b>
A list of <a class="link" href="gtk-running.html#GDK-Debug-Options" title="GDK_DEBUG">debug options</a> 
to turn on in addition to those specified in the <code class="envar">GDK_DEBUG</code> 
environment variable. This option is only available if GTK+ has been 
configured with <code class="option">--enable-debug=yes</code>.
</p>
<p><b><code class="systemitem">--gdk-no-debug <em class="replaceable"><code>options</code></em></code>. </b>
A list of <a class="link" href="gtk-running.html#GDK-Debug-Options" title="GDK_DEBUG">debug options</a> 
to turn off. This option is only available if GTK+ has been configured with
<code class="option">--enable-debug=yes</code>.
</p>
</div>
<hr>
<div class="refsect2">
<a name="id465743"></a><h3>Environment variables</h3>
<p> 
GTK+ inspects a number of environment variables in addition to standard
variables like <code class="envar">LANG</code>, <code class="envar">PATH</code>, <code class="envar">HOME</code> 
or <code class="envar">DISPLAY</code>; mostly to determine paths to look for certain 
files. The X11, 
<a class="link" href="gtk-windows.html#win32-envar" title="Windows-specific environment variables">Windows</a> and 
Framebuffer GDK backends use some
additional environment variables.
</p>
<p><a name="GTK-Debug-Options"></a><b><code class="envar">GTK_DEBUG</code>. </b>
  If GTK+ has been configured with <code class="option">--enable-debug=yes</code>,
  this variable can be set to a list of debug options, which cause GTK+
  to print out different types of debugging information.
  </p>
<div class="variablelist"><table border="0">
<col align="left" valign="top">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">misc</span></p></td>
<td><p>Miscellaneous information</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">plugsocket</span></p></td>
<td><p>Cross-process embedding</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">text</span></p></td>
<td><p>Text widget internals</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">tree</span></p></td>
<td><p>Tree widget internals</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">updates</span></p></td>
<td><p>Visual feedback about window updates</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">keybindings</span></p></td>
<td><p>Keybindings</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">multihead</span></p></td>
<td><p>Working on multiple displays</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">modules</span></p></td>
<td><p>Loading of modules</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">geometry</span></p></td>
<td><p>Size allocation</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">icontheme</span></p></td>
<td><p>Icon themes</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">printing</span></p></td>
<td><p>Printing support</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">builder</span></p></td>
<td><p>GtkBuilder support</p></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table></div>
<p>
  The special value <code class="literal">all</code> can be used to turn on all 
  debug options.
  </p>
<p><b><code class="envar">GTK_MODULES</code>. </b>
    A list of modules to load. Note that GTK+ also allows to specify modules to load via a commandline option (<code class="option">--gtk-module</code>) and with the <code class="literal">gtk-modules</code> setting.
  </p>
<div class="warning" style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in;">
<h3 class="title">Warning</h3>
    Note that this environment variable is read by GTK+ 3 too,
    which may not have the same set of modules available for loading.
  </div>
<p><b><code class="envar">GTK_PATH</code>. </b>
    Specifies a list of directories to search when GTK+ is looking for
    dynamically loaded objects such as the modules specified by
    <code class="envar">GTK_MODULES</code>, theme engines, input method
    modules, file system backends and print backends. If the path to 
    the dynamically loaded object is given as an absolute path name, 
    then GTK+ loads it directly. 
    Otherwise, GTK+ goes in turn through the directories in GTK_PATH, 
    followed by the directory <code class="filename">.gtk-2.0</code> in the user's 
    home directory, followed by the system default directory, 
    which is <code class="filename"><em class="replaceable"><code>libdir</code></em>/gtk-2.0/modules</code>.
    (If <code class="envar">GTK_EXE_PREFIX</code> is defined, <em class="replaceable"><code>libdir</code></em> is 
    <code class="filename">$GTK_EXE_PREFIX/lib</code>. Otherwise it is the libdir
    specified when GTK+ was configured, usually
    <code class="filename">/usr/lib</code>, or
    <code class="filename">/usr/local/lib</code>.)
    For each directory in this list, GTK+ actually looks in a
    subdirectory
    <code class="filename"><em class="replaceable"><code>directory</code></em>/<em class="replaceable"><code>version</code></em>/<em class="replaceable"><code>host</code></em>/<em class="replaceable"><code>type</code></em></code>
    Where <em class="replaceable"><code>version</code></em> is derived from the
    version of GTK+ (use <code class="literal">pkg-config
    --variable=gtk_binary_version gtk+-2.0</code> to determine this from a
    script), <em class="replaceable"><code>host</code></em> is the architecture on
    which GTK+ was built. (use <code class="literal">pkg-config
    --variable=gtk_host gtk+-2.0</code> to determine this from a
    script), and <em class="replaceable"><code>type</code></em> is a directory
    specific to the type of modules; currently it can be
    <code class="literal">modules</code>, <code class="literal">engines</code>, 
    <code class="literal">immodules</code>, <code class="literal">filesystems</code> or 
    <code class="literal">printbackends</code>, corresponding to the types of
    modules mentioned above. Either <em class="replaceable"><code>version</code></em>,
    <em class="replaceable"><code>host</code></em>, or both may be omitted. GTK+ looks
    first in the most specific directory, then in directories with
    fewer components.
    The components of GTK_PATH are separated by the ':' character on
    Linux and Unix, and the ';' character on Windows.
  </p>
<div class="warning" style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in;">
<h3 class="title">Warning</h3>
    Note that this environment variable is read by GTK+ 3 too, which
    makes it unsuitable for setting it system-wide (or session-wide),
    since doing so will cause either GTK+ 2.x applications or GTK+ 3
    applications to see incompatible modules.
  </div>
<p><b><code class="envar">GTK_IM_MODULE</code>. </b>
    Specifies an IM module to use in preference to the one determined
    from the locale.  If this isn't set and you are running on the system
    that enables <code class="literal">XSETTINGS</code> and has a value in
    <code class="literal">Gtk/IMModule</code>, that will be used for the default
    IM module.
  </p>
<p><a name="im-module-file"></a><b><code class="envar">GTK_IM_MODULE_FILE</code>. </b>
    Specifies the file listing the IM modules to load. This environment
    variable overrides the <code class="literal">im_module_file</code> specified in 
    the RC files, which in turn overrides the default value 
    <code class="filename"><em class="replaceable"><code>sysconfdir</code></em>/gtk-2.0/gtk.immodules</code>
    (<em class="replaceable"><code>sysconfdir</code></em> is the sysconfdir specified when GTK+ was configured, 
     usually <code class="filename">/usr/local/etc</code>.)
  </p>
<p><b><code class="envar">GTK2_RC_FILES</code>. </b>
    Specifies a list of RC files to parse instead of the default ones;
    see <a class="link" href="gtk-Resource-Files.html" title="Resource Files">Resource Files</a>.
  </p>
<div class="warning" style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in;">
<h3 class="title">Warning</h3>
    Note that this environment variable is read by GTK+ 3 too, which
    makes it unsuitable for setting it system-wide (or session-wide),
    since doing so will cause either GTK+ 2.x applications or GTK+ 3
    applications to see the wrong list of IM modules.
  </div>
<p><b><code class="envar">GTK_EXE_PREFIX</code>. </b>
    If set, GTK+ uses <code class="filename">$GTK_EXE_PREFIX/lib</code> instead of 
    the libdir configured when GTK+ was compiled.
  </p>
<p><b><code class="envar">GTK_DATA_PREFIX</code>. </b>
    If set, makes GTK+ use <code class="filename">$GTK_DATA_PREFIX</code>
    instead of the prefix configured when GTK+ was compiled.
  </p>
<p>
The following environment variables are used by GdkPixbuf, GDK or
Pango, not by GTK+ itself, but we list them here for completeness
nevertheless.
</p>
<p><b><code class="envar">GDK_PIXBUF_MODULE_FILE</code>. </b>
    Specifies the file listing the GdkPixbuf loader modules to load. 
    This environment variable overrides the default value 
    <code class="filename"><em class="replaceable"><code>sysconfdir</code></em>/gtk-2.0/gdk-pixbuf.loaders</code>
    (<em class="replaceable"><code>sysconfdir</code></em> is the sysconfdir specified when
	  GTK+ was configured, usually <code class="filename">/usr/local/etc</code>.)
  </p>
<p><a name="GDK-Debug-Options"></a><b><code class="envar">GDK_DEBUG</code>. </b>
  If GTK+ has been configured with <code class="option">--enable-debug=yes</code>,
  this variable can be set to a list of debug options, which cause GDK
  to print out different types of debugging information.
  </p>
<div class="variablelist"><table border="0">
<col align="left" valign="top">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">misc</span></p></td>
<td><p>Miscellaneous information</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">events</span></p></td>
<td><p>Show all events received by GDK</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">dnd</span></p></td>
<td><p>Information about drag-and-drop</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">xim</span></p></td>
<td><p>Information about XIM support</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">nograbs</span></p></td>
<td><p>Turn off all pointer and keyboard grabs</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">multihead</span></p></td>
<td><p>Information related to multiple screens</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">xinerama</span></p></td>
<td><p>Simulate a multi-monitor setup</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">cursor</span></p></td>
<td><p>Information about cursor objects (only win32)</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">draw</span></p></td>
<td><p>Information about drawing operations (only win32)</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="term">eventloop</span></p></td>
<td><p>Information about event loop operation (mostly Quartz)</p></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table></div>
<p>
  The special value <code class="literal">all</code> can be used to turn on all
  debug options.
  </p>
<p><b><code class="envar">GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS</code>. </b>
    If set, GDK creates all windows as native windows. This can help
    applications that make assumptions about 1-1 correspondence between
    GDK windows and X11 windows.
  </p>
<p><b><code class="envar">XDG_DATA_HOME</code>, <code class="envar">XDG_DATA_DIRS</code>. </b>
    GTK+ uses these environment variables to locate icon themes
    and MIME information. For more information, see 
    <a class="ulink" href="http://freedesktop.org/Standards/icon-theme-spec" target="_top">Icon Theme Specification</a>,
    the <a class="ulink" href="http://freedesktop.org/Standards/shared-mime-info-spec" target="_top">Shared MIME-info Database</a> 
    and the <a class="ulink" href="http://freedesktop.org/Standards/basedir-spec" target="_top">Base Directory Specification</a>.
  </p>
<p><b><code class="envar">DESKTOP_STARTUP_ID</code>. </b>
    GTK+ uses this environment variable to provide startup notification
    according to the <a class="ulink" href="http://standards.freedesktop.org/startup-notification-spec/startup-notification-latest.txt" target="_top">Startup Notification Spec</a>.
    Following the specification, GTK+ unsets this variable after reading
    it (to keep it from leaking to child processes). So, if you need its
    value for your own purposes, you have to read it before calling
    gtk_init().
  </p>
</div>
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